While we are still very much working on our current album and workflow, we have been thinking a lot about our next project. In particular going DAWless and what that actually means. It’s not to say our current process is bad, just as we have been embracing analog more and more, coupled with generative AI along with the modern DAW experience getting more frequently interrupted by nonsense (looking at you, Windows 11) – we thought it might be good to experiment around.

We have already procured a Portastudio (4 track cassette recorder) for each of us with the idea being we embrace that workflow into our writing process. Because we work on songs quite often in between practices, having a deck for each of us was important and we can pass tapes back and forth at our practices, but also still sharing ideas by way of recording the tape.

We have already experimented with this and it’s been a ton of fun! You may have seen some YouTube Shorts showing some Portastudio shenanigans among other things. It’s been super freeing! But also has made us have to think about a lot of things we have taken for granted.

The track limitation is obvious and we knew this going in. It forces us to think more simply with how we want to arrange a song. We can certainly sub-mix multiple synths and things down to fewer tracks, we are using this opportunity to try and focus on fewer elements.

More surprising to us wasn’t this limitation but how accustomed were have become to modern creature comforts. For our current album, The Social Machine, we use Renoise as our main sequencer for synths (and also use it for 90’s tracker style sampling) and mostly use Ableton for audio recording. Either way, they both allow for easily synchronizing instruments and audio and looping.

Without a DAW, our looping options are much more limited. This is a good thing to explore as it certainly makes songs more organic and “human” but it also has a big impact on the writing process. We’re not yet sure if we will be adopting a sort of purist view of DAWless, basically recording things to a Portastudio “live” similar to a punk band.

At the other DAWless extreme is something like an Akai MPC One. One can argue that it’s still a DAW, just one the is standalone rather than running on a computer. So in some ways it is still very freeing, but in others not all that alien. In this scenario, we would likely use the MPC mostly for MIDI sequencing but still live play things where relevant (guitars, vocals, synth leads, etc.) and still target the Portastudio workflow, at least while writing songs. This way keeps our songs somewhat structured, which is one thing we wanted to experiment with getting away from.

There is the obvious investment of needing an MPC (or two). So splitting the difference we could use Ableton or Reaper but only for MIDI. We’re not really DAWless in the true spirit, but it also costs us nothing as we already have these, and as long as we stick to objective, it’s a similar net results. Or we split the difference and try to use some of the sequencers included on our synths and things as a cross between the two.

There isn’t really a conclusion here. It’s mostly just sharing our thought process for what we have been pondering for the next album. Of course, we still need to continue working on The Social Machine before we really start going heavy into all of this, but DAWless has been very enticing. We spend so much time in front of computers that thinking about the possibility of doing that less while still making music is compelling. Even if some might consider it a step backwards – is it really? New is often better, but not universally so. One huge bonus of DAWless is being able to turn off distractions. That in it of itself is a worthy cause, as you can imagine from many of the themes in some of the songs we have already written and released for The Social Machine.